Why Does LA Have No Good Hong Kong Cuisine?

Los Angeles may have plenty of good Sichuan, Shanghai, and Beijing places, but it lacks utterly any sort of Hong Kong cuisine, says RAFT48. Cantonese cuisine is mediocre here, and Hong Kong–specific cuisine is just depressing, compared to the heights of Toronto and Vancouver, RAFT48 says.

“Of the 5 major North American markets that have huge concentrations of Chinese population (LA, SF, NY, Vancouver and Toronto), the L.A. region has the smallest number of HK immigrant population,” explains RAFT48. “As a result, many of the so-called HK style cuisine here are run and cooked by non-HK Chinese, many of whom do not understand the concept of delivering high quality HK dining.”

“To be honest if you ask me here in L.A. if I would rather dine at Panda Express or those HK-style restaurants, I would pick the former,” says RAFT48. “Just goes to show how much I dislike HK-style dining in the Greater L.A. area.”

It’s simply not fair, says ipsedixit, to compare Los Angeles to Toronto or Vancouver for Hong Kong food. “No one, at least not in their right mind, will argue that the HK style food here in LA/OC is comparable to that in Toronto,” says ipsedixit. That said, Los Angeles is still probably the third for Hong Kong cuisine in the Western Hemisphere, albeit a distant third.